7 Times Politicians Plagiarized—Including Donald Trump

Melania Trump seems to have plagiarized portions of her keynote speech Monday night at the Republican National Convention, setting off a media feeding frenzy and tarnishing what many observers had said was a solid performance for a newcomer to the political stage. But her word appropriation is far from the first time someone in the political arena—including, ahem, her husband—has faced accusations of lifting someone else's language or published someone else's work and calling it their own.

Joe Biden, 1987

Getty ImagesTerry Ashe

Then-Senator Biden was running for president when his campaign was rocked with allegations that he plagiarized a speech from British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. According to CNN, Kinnock's speech read as:

"Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? [Pointing to his wife in the audience:] Why is Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Was it because all our predecessors were thick?"

And Biden said:

"I started thinking as I was coming over here, why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? [Pointing to his wife in the audience:] Why is it that my wife who is sitting out there in the audience is the first in her family to ever go to college? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? Is it because I'm the first Biden in a thousand generations to get a college and a graduate degree that I was smarter than the rest?"

The resulting shitstorm forced Biden to withdraw from the presidential race and led to further allegations that he'd swiped parts of other speeches and even plagiarized law school papers.

"All I had to say was 'Like Kinnock,'" Biden later remarked, according to The Los Angeles Times. "If I'd just said those two words, 'Like Kinnock.' And I didn't. It was my fault, nobody else's."

Barack Obama, 2008

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During his first run for president, then-Senator Obama faced allegations from Democratic rival Hillary Clinton that he plagiarized portions of a 2006 speech from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.

Obama defended himself by saying he and Patrick are friends and that they share ideas often, according to the site Plagiarism Today. Patrick himself defended Obama on national television. Still, Obama acknowledged that he should have at least credited his friend, saying Patrick "had suggested we use these lines. I thought they were good lines. I'm sure I should have. Didn't this time."

Rand Paul, 2012 and 2013

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Sen. Paul's plagiarism record is extensive.

In 2013, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow called him out for pinching portions of the Wikipedia page for the movie Gattaca. That same year, parts of his response to President Obama's State of the Union address closely mimicked an Associated Press report, according to Politico.

A year earlier, according to BuzzFeed, he lifted lines from the movie Stand and Deliver for another speech. BuzzFeed also reported that Paul's book Government Bullies borrowed extensively from a 2003 Heritage Foundation study.

While Paul has admitted to improper attribution, he also described the people calling him out as "a bunch of hacks and haters," according to CNN.

Ben Carson, 2012

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Carson admitted in his 2012 book America the Beautiful that he stole other people's research as an undergraduate psychology major, according to NBC News. Curiously, as BuzzFeed pointed out, portions of that book were copied directly from two conservative historians as well as the website Socialismsucks.net.

Carson actually weighed in on the Melania controversy on Tuesday morning, saying, "If Melania's speech is similar to Michelle Obama's speech, that should make us all very happy because we should be saying, whether we're Democrats or Republicans, we share the same values."

John Walsh, 2014

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Walsh, an Iraq War veteran and Democrat, was appointed to finish retiring Senator Max Baucus's term in 2014. Walsh then sought a full term but had to withdraw from the race after allegations surfaced that he plagiarized parts of a 2007 masters degree term paper at the U.S. Army War College, according to NBC News. His degree was ultimately revoked.

Ted Cruz, 2016

Getty ImagesMark Wilson

After Donald Trump threatened to "spill the beans" about Cruz's wife Heidi, Cruz adopted some tough talk—that was originally written by Aaron Sorkin. During an interview on CNN, Cruz quoted the movie The American President, written by Sorkin and starring Michael Douglas, without attribution.

Donald Trump, 2016

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The same month that Trump hammered Cruz for lifting a line from The American President, conservative news site The Daily Caller reported on striking similarities between a newspaper op-ed published under Ben Carson's name on February 26 and one that appeared in a different newspaper two weeks later under Trump's name. In some cases, The Daily Caller noted, full sentences appeared lifted from Carson's op-ed.

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